You know how when you turn the volume knob up on your stereo and it ticks past the comfortable volume when you're alone? It reaches fifty.. then fifty-five and you wonder if you could get away with sixty. Then you're turning it to the right like a surgeon, listening as the music gets louder and and you know that maybe you're going too far. You just keep turning until you see the cones of your speakers vibrate.. and then the glass of your windows seems to not sit still. You hit ninety and there's no looking back.. you can hear nothing else in your head because now the music is drowning everything out.

This act right here.. was the only thing Daelia could do to make it stop. She was hearing the voice of the late Zacchary Morane in her head more than ever now and he was forgiving, he was loving and he was giving her all the reassurance she could ever need now that she was engaged to Caleb. He was telling her he'd look out for her unborn child, he was coaxing her into helping Saint deal with things and worst of it all?

She knew it wasn't real. The logical aspects of Daelia Dollinger's life were thrown to the wayside whenever these little momentary apparitions would happen. He always appeared in the same way, with a gash wound across his throat and a smile on his lips. He called her by name, he told her he loved her and he never left without letting her know that it would all be okay..

..but that's not real, is it?

The darkness of the Hathian streets was growing by the minute, like cocaine-caked shadows that seemed almost endless. Whenever she'd watch the same situations she'd once lived inside, she saw they were hollowed out now. She watched Parnell stand at his corner and protect his record shop like some prideful lion, arms crossed against his heavy chest. She watched as the rest of them went about their lives and seemingly had no clue what was waiting behind each door, but they cared not.

She'd signed the papers and she'd made the emails. In one calculating move set against the other, Daelia had decided that Hathian had more to worry about than the drugs and the rapes, which were like cupcakes and butterflies anymore. They should worry about what would happen with the badges took over, what would happen when the brutality of the streets wasn't enough to keep the wheels turning.

As she stood there, fingertips to the volume knob on her stereo.. she stared out the window. It was dark. So very dark out there and nothing was heard on the other side of it. Her final chess move into the beginning of what, she hoped, would sculpt Hathian into something more concrete.. was approaching. Once the proper channels had been reached and the decisions had been made, it was all a matter of a simple move from knight to pawn.

In Latin.. they called it "Terminatus Venatus".. but here in the real world, she called it the "EndGame".